Not completely but made it much better. If I stick the barreled action in the stock but do not insert action screws, the whole assembly will rock front to back a little. Hard to describe so you can read this and understand what I see. Imagine the recoil lug was about .010" too high making a high spot that acts as a pivot point. if you push on the top of the barrel past the barrel nut, the tang with safety will lift up a little. Like somewhere the receiver sits on a high spot which allows the entire barreled action to seesaw a tiny bit.
It is not the recoil lug. I measured the area it goes into behind barrel nut and the lug itself. The top of the recoil lug should not be hitting the barrel threads. There is clearance. Measured at corners too - several places. But from pressing around to see where I get movement, it is in that area.
If I press say in between where the action screws would be - say top of receiver centered on ejection port, there is no movement or rocking. Only when I press forward of about where the front action screw would be. With action screws installed and torqued, there is not movement. If I squeeze a little at the stock fore end and top of barrel, the barrel will flex down and contact the stock. Like where the most forward sling swivel is if I put my thumb there and my fingers on top of the barrel and then squeeze, I can make the barrel move down & touch the stock. That might be a perfectly normal flexing or an indication of what is broken.
The cheapie Weaver 1-piece mount got here today. It is installed with my new fat rings and a Nikon Monarch 3. Loaded up some more 125 gr & 165 gr with extreme care & have some factory ammo left too. If rain lets up tomorrow will test it out.
On a side note, assuming Weaver scope included with rifle turns out to be the issue I will need a replacement. Already slightly over the budget I had in mind for this build & adding glass wasn't a consideration. Don't know if I mentioned it, but this is to be a deer rifle for my stepson who graduates HS next month. He's developed a real hunting bug over past year since moving back to TN with his father. All he has is 12GA Benelli Supervonva - I guess if you want to hunt & only have 1 thing, a 12GA isn't bad way to go. Anyway, he got a deer, turkey, & cougar this year & working on thinning the local coyote population as well. Figured a rifle would open up some options for him esp for deer (I'm not a hunter but would assume max range is a big limitation for deer with a shotgun). Went with .308 because I don't think there is anything in TN that .308 won't work for but might be a little much for some of the smaller stuff. But that's why I'm trying to get a good 125gr varmint load + a good 165gr larger critter load. So I might end up needing a good, yet not insanely expensive scope. I use Nikon Monarchs for anything with a scope but don't want to spend $400ish more on this gun. I've never used so have no idea how the their other models are. $130 3-9x40 Buckmaster, $185 Prostaff, etc. I do have a Vortex Crossfire II here that I took as part of a trade deal. Seems to work ok but no idea if it's good for hunting - or a good scope in general. That's an option too - it's sitting on a 10/22 right now & seems ok for it. Whatever it ends up being will probably need a 40mm lens or else clearance will be an issue. Everything I bought is 'medium height' & that seems to work well with the comb on stock too.
